


His Soul Reflects My Own (Kingdom Hearts crossover stories)

by Raberba girl (Raberba_girl)



Series: His Soul Reflects My Own [2]
Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Dreamworks), Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Adopted Children, Alternate Universe - Children, Child Abuse, Day At The Beach, Destiny Islands, Drago's Bewilderbeast (human form) bonding with five-year-old Vanitas and Namine and Repliku, Friendship, Gen, Teenage Destiny Trio raising adopted children, Two very unhappy kids sharing a moment of friendship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-01
Updated: 2014-11-15
Packaged: 2018-02-23 11:34:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2546057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raberba_girl/pseuds/Raberba%20girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two young boys - one forced into constant combat training, the other enslaved by a madman - have a chance encounter on Destiny Islands one afternoon.</p><p>Ten years later, Drago's now-freed Bewilderbeast finds that he has much in common with Vanitas, Namine, & Repliku.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. His Soul Reflects My Own: Creative Expression - Under Water (theme 41)

**_His Soul Reflects My Own: Creative Expression -_ ** **_Under Water_ ** **(theme 41) [rough draft]** **, a Kingdom Hearts / How to Train Your Dragon crossover fanfic written by Raberba girl**

**List of themes** **by** **DavisJes, Variation 3 for the 100ThemesChallenge group on deviantART**

 

Summary: Two young boys - one forced into constant combat training, the other enslaved by a madman - have a chance encounter on Destiny Islands one afternoon. Platonic Riku / dark Bewilderbeast, with some platonic Sora/Riku/Kairi on the side.

 

A/N: **Please read the _A Small Addition to Berk's Flock_ chapter(s) of "The Dragon Queen of Berk," as well as _His Soul Reflects My Own_ , before you read this.** This fic is supposed to be a one-shot prequel to _His Soul Reflects My Own: Freedom_.

 

For you guys who haven't read any of my previous fics or my FFN profile, **I ship platonic pairings, and I dislike slash**.

 

 **Riku & Squirt are both eight years old. The Kingdom Hearts characters seem to have a knack for understanding and communicating in response to foreign languages perfectly well** (Chinese in the Land of Dragons, Arabic in Agrabah, universal animal language, etc.), **so it doesn't matter whether Squirt's speaking Norse or dream language to him.** (And I also just didn't want to have to mess with a bunch of Latin. X'D)

**WARNING for child abuse.** This fic was _intended_ to be mostly fluffy, but, I mean, Squirt is Drago Bludvist's slave, so that part killed the mood and possibly the entire fic, I dunno. :/ Your Mileage May Vary.

 

o.o.o

 

Riku was ready to cry from frustration. His parents had been right, they were so right: love weakened you; love was a liability. He understood now why they didn't care about him, why they had no interest in their own children other than shaping them into the best weapons and tools possible. Having someone to love _hurt_.

 

At the same time, he knew he could never give up Sora and Kairi. Those two, with their bright smiles and boundless energy and such incredible innocence that often amazed Riku.... They were the only brightness in Riku's life, and Riku _couldn't_ have given up his friends, even to protect them.

 

Which was why he was here on the beach now instead of at school, because stupid Kadaj had threatened, simultaneously playful and deadly, to hurt Sora and Kairi if Riku went to school today, even though Riku _had_ to go to school for both the super-important standardized testing and the dress rehearsal for the class play. Kadaj _knew_ Riku had to go to school, which was why he'd made sure Riku couldn't go.

 

"I HATE you, Kadaj!" Riku raged at the ocean.

 

Of course there was no response, so he sighed and slumped back down on the crest of the dune. A whole day with no school, which meant his parents would expect him to do something 'useful' during his abundance of free time, but he didn't _want_ to do any of the things they would approve of. He wanted to take his stupid tests, and rehearse for the stupid play, but he was stuck here far away from school and from Sora and Kairi, wondering if Kadaj had lied yet again and hurt them anyway, wondering if he should risk sneaking to the school to check, wondering if that would actually make things worse....

 

A wild cry startled him. Riku straightened up and looked out at the waves, from which a small figure was emerging. He frowned, then got up and slid down the side of the dune and approached the dark-skinned boy who was now on his hands and knees, watching the water rush up around him and then retreat, over and over again.

 

"Hey," Riku called when he was close enough.

 

The boy looked up at him, his strange blue-and-red eyes shining with joy. "What is this?!" He pointed out at the horizon.

 

Riku eyed him warily. "...The ocean?"

 

"Ocean...ocean, it's the _ocean_ , this is what an ocean is...." The boy flopped down into the next incoming wave, closing his eyes as if the sensation of seawater surging over him was blissful. "I like it _very much_."

 

"Are you here with your family on vacation?" Riku asked. That's what pretty much all strangers came to Destiny Islands for, but the boy's clothes didn't look like vacation clothes.... He was dressed in a ragged, mismatched outfit that looked like someone had assembled it completely at random.

 

The boy looked up at him in confusion. Then he stood up and reached out wonderingly toward Riku's hair.

 

Riku was used to other children and even older people wanting to touch his silky silver hair, though it had been a while since a boy had done so. Riku stepped back in a practiced sort of way. "Don't touch my hair."

 

"I like it. It's lovely."

 

"Don't say stuff like that about me."

 

The boy cocked his head, looking confused again.

 

Riku sighed. "I'm Riku. What's your name?"

 

The boy thought about this. "I don't have a name," he said finally.

 

"What?"

 

"Master only calls me 'You' or insults, but...I don't think I have a real name."

 

Riku didn't know what to say to this. "...Your 'master'? Like...a sensei, or...?"

 

"My master. He owns me, but I don't own him." The boy lowered his head and said quietly, "I don't like that."

 

"Well...then why don't you run away or something?"

 

The boy stared at him. He slowly raised a hand to the side of his neck. "I can't do that."

 

Riku thought about running away himself, about how impossible it would be, and he understood. "I'm sorry," he said, with genuine sympathy.

 

The boy was gazing at him. "You're unhappy about something. Something that's far away."

 

Riku fidgeted, wondering how the boy knew that. "...My friends, Sora and Kairi. I'm really worried about them, but I'm not allowed to check on them and see if they're all right." A thought occurred to him. "Can you?"

 

"Maybe. Are they asleep?"

 

"Uh...probably not."

 

"Oh...."

 

"...Can you still try?"

 

"Yes." The boy reached out. "Give me your hands."

 

"...Okay, but let's move farther up the beach. It's too wet here."

 

The boy cast a longing look out at the sea, but complied. Then he sat on the sand with his eyes closed, holding Riku's hands. "Think about these people, Sora and Kairi," he murmured. "Picture them in your mind."

 

"Can you read my mind?" Riku said warily. He hated, _hated_ it when his parents read his mind, it always made him feel so helpless and dirty.

 

"No. Only your emotions, or if your thoughts are very strong or directed toward me. I don't know your Sora or your Kairi, so I can't find them unless you help me."

 

"Okay...." Riku thought about his friends, about what he hoped they were doing right now, sitting safely at their desks or laughing and playing with their classmates.

 

"Oh, good," the boy finally murmured. "Your Sora is daydreaming, so I found him." He smiled a little. "He is dreaming about you, wishing he could play together with you and Kairi here on the beach."

 

"He's such a dork," Riku said, smiling widely in relief. "He's not hurt or anything, is he?"

 

"No. He misses you, but that is all."

 

"Good." Riku let go of the boy's hands. "Um...thank you."

 

The boy stared at him, confused yet again.

 

Now Riku was a little bit confused. Didn't this strange kid know what 'thank you' meant? "You know. Because you, um, did something nice for me. It made me happy."

 

"...Really?" The boy had such a shy, sweet smile, as if he'd never made anyone happy before.

 

A man's angry roar immediately wiped the expression from his face. "YOU!!"

 

The boy set his hands on Riku's shoulders and _shoved_. Riku had no idea what happened in the next few seconds; he saw a flash of the nearby lifeguard ravenously starting to rip off a woman's bikini; then Riku blinked and found himself behind the little run-down cafe further up the beach. _'Did I...did I_ teleport _...?!'_ He had never been able to do so before, no matter how hard he tried. He was rather inclined to think that the strange boy had teleported him instead--

 

\--The boy who was still somewhere down on the beach, alone now and at the mercy of that huge, raging man, whose heavy clothes had been completely out of place in this summery island world.

 

Riku ran back to the dunes, having no plan in mind. He ducked down behind a clump of long grass and stared down at the beach. The man was shaking the boy, then flung him into the sand. The boy curled up tightly with his arms covering his head. "Master, please, I didn't know I was supposed to stay--!"

 

"You don't MOVE unless _I_ give the order! You don't _breathe_ , you don't _think_ without my permission!"

 

"Yes, Master, yes, yes, please don't--!"

 

Riku was shaking as he watched. He knew he was no match for this man physically; if he could just think of a _plan_ , some way to overpower the man through deception or spontaneously-devised weaponry, some way to--

 

" _Who were you talking to_??"

 

"A boy! Someone, only a native, we talked about his problems, I didn't--!"

 

Riku flinched at the sight of an adult striking a child in anger. The boy's cries were little more than resigned whimpers.

 

" _Never_ speak to anyone without permission again."

 

"Yes, Master, yes."

 

The man hauled the boy up from the sand and held him still in what looked like a crushing grip, his fingers moving on the side of the boy's neck and across the strange shimmering that had appeared before the boy's face. The boy hung miserably in his grasp, quiet and helpless.

 

The shimmering finally disappeared and the man flung his slave back down to his knees. "I waste my time writing sequence after sequence to bring you to heel, when you should already know to obey my commands properly. You're _worthless_."

 

"Yes, Master."

 

" _Get up_."

 

The boy dragged himself to his feet.

 

"Take us home."

 

Head hanging, the boy took his master's hand, and they took two steps and then vanished into thin air.

 

Riku was crying.

 

o.o.o.o.o

 

He went straight to the school. Sora's face lit up when he saw his best friend come marching onto the playground, and then he craned his head in confusion when Riku flung his arms around him and hugged him tightly. "Riku?"

 

"Are you okay, Riku?" Kairi asked as she hurried up to them.

 

"...."

 

"Did you have a bad day?" Sora asked sympathetically, trying to pat his friend's back with one of his half-pinned arms. "Were you sick? Is that why you didn't come earlier?"

 

Riku reached out an arm to embrace Kairi as well. "You guys are really important to me," Riku whispered. "I'll _kill_ anyone who tries to hurt you."

 

"Oh, Riku," Kairi said sadly.

 

Sora's eyes widened. "Killing people is bad, Riku, isn't it?"

 

Riku finally pulled back, gazing at his friends for a while before smiling a little. "You're like the sun, Sora. So are you, Kairi."

 

"Huh?"

 

He hovered close to them for the rest of the afternoon, and went home with Sora. He helped Sora with his homework, then they played video games and helped Mrs. King make dinner.

 

When the triplets came by later to gleefully 'punish' him for going to school when he 'wasn't allowed,' Riku was upset enough to actually _beat_ Kadaj and Loz on his own, with help from a bottle of cleaning fluid and a corkscrew from the kitchen. Yazoo could tell that he was in a strange mood and kept aloof from the fight, which was why he wasn't rolling on the ground moaning in pain afterward like his brothers were.

 

"I'm spending the night with Sora," Riku informed him brusquely. "Tell Mother and Father. I'll give them a full report later."

 

"What exactly do you have to show for today's work?"

 

"That's their business and mine - not yours." Riku brandished the corkscrew.

 

Yazoo lifted his chin haughtily. "Fine." He opened a dark corridor, dragged Kadaj and Loz into it, and vanished.

 

"You've been sad all day, huh, Riku," Sora remarked.

 

"I couldn't protect him, but I swear I'll protect _you_ ," Riku muttered.

 

"Him? Who's him?"

 

"Just, someone...he didn't even have a name...."

 

o.o.o.o.o

 

Sora, cuddled close to him that night, fell asleep almost immediately, but Riku lay awake for a long time. When he finally did sleep, he dreamed about Sora and Kairi, and the ocean.

 

_He was an orca, cavorting through the water alongside a dolphin who was Sora and a mermaid who was Kairi._

_Sora was constantly darting this way and that, eagerly investigating every interesting nook and cranny. The three of them fought off predators together and chased fish for fun, and made their way into ever more deeper waters._

_There were sea monsters down here, strange fish and creatures with no names. A great beast loomed up before them, blinking blue-and-red eyes at them._

_Familiar eyes._

_"You..." Riku realized._

_The great sea dragon was hurting and afraid._

_"It's okay!" Kairi said sweetly, "We're not gonna hurt you!"_

_"Me and Riku and Kairi will be your friends," Sora piped up. "Right, Riku?"_

_"I'm sorry I couldn't help you," Riku whispered. "I'm sorry I let him take you."_

**_"...I am...glad to see you again."_ **

 

_"Whoa! You have a big voice," Sora laughed._

**_"Your Sora and your Kairi are lovely."_ **

_Riku gazed at him. "We're really here, aren't we. This...isn't a dream...?"_

**_"It is a dream. He rules my body and my mind, my heart; but my dreams are still mine."_ **

_"Is 'he' the one trying to drown your heart in darkness?" Kairi asked, distressed for the great dragon._

_"You're sad, too," Sora realized. "Aww. Come play with us, big sea dragon!"_

**_"Yes. For as long as I dream...yes, please. But you will have to teach me."_ **

 

 _"What?! Playing is_ easy _! Come on; me and Riku and Kairi will swim really fast, and you chase us, okay?"_

**_"Yes."_ **

 

_"Good! Okay; one, two, three, go~!"_

 

Riku saw the nameless boy in his dreams only once or twice after that. Then it was more than ten years before he saw him again.

 

o.o.o

 

Author's Notes: **EXPLANATION FOR THE BIKINI PART: Squirt shoved Riku into the lifeguard's daydream (of disrobing some woman in a bikini whom he'd been watching earlier) and then into the real world again, but in a different location, as a way of getting him out of Drago's sight very quickly.**

 

Drago had made Squirt bring him to Destiny Islands for some sort of errand; Squirt had wandered off while Drago was busy.

 

Squirt's speaking style is deliberately more formal than most children's.

 

Riku's horrible childhood is hinted at in some of my Kingdom Hearts fics, but I never did finish the main fics where it's focused on. *sweatdrop*

 

Okay, so. I've been working on _HSRMO: Freedom_ , and there's one chapter where Squirt travels to Destiny Islands. ( _Freedom_ is mostly a HTTYD fic, but there are a few crossover chapters.) I liked the idea of him having met Riku before, so I wrote this prequel one-shot in order to help me write the _Freedom_ chapter, which takes place over a decade later.

I'd been _intending_ to post it as just another "chapter" of HSRMO on AO3, but there were a few factors that made me decide to just post it separately.

Complete: 5/100


	2. His Soul Reflects My Own: Freedom - Under the Summer Sun

**_His Soul Reflects My Own: Freedom - Under the Summer Sun_ ** **(rough draft)**

**A Kingdom Hearts / How to Train Your Dragon crossover fanfic by Raberba girl**

 

Summary: A shattered heart, a girl chained by memories, a nameless copy - Kazé, Naminé, and Dawn, slowly healing in their second chance at life, understand Squirt better than he knows. (Or: Squirt spends a day on Destiny Islands with the "Next Life" crew.)

 

A/N: In case you haven't read my Kingdom Hearts fanfiction, **Dawn is Riku's replica, and Kazé is Vanitas. Please read my _The Next Life_ series as well as _His Soul Reflects My Own_ before you read this story.**

 

o.o.o

 

It was a beautiful world.

 

A tiny one, merely a handful of islands in the middle of a great ocean, yet lovely in its peace and natural perfection, warm and relaxed and welcoming.

 

Squirt lay on the beach at the water's edge, eyes closed, letting the surf splash over him, overcome by a sweet sense of nostalgia. This was the first place where he had seen an ocean with his own eyes and felt the soothing touch of its waters. Some deep part of him loved the sea and belonged in it; the easiest and most beloved dream body for him to take on was that of a great sea dragon. He was home here.

 

Squirt wasn't even thinking of Hiccup or his rebellion, he wasn't thinking anything in particular. He lay in a nest of peace and contentment as if he was ensconced in a perfect dream, and he wanted to hold this happiness close forever.

 

"He's dead, right?"

 

Something poked Squirt in the back. He barely felt it.

 

"We should go tell Kairi and Sora and everyone, shouldn't we?"

 

Kairi...Sora.... Those names were...?

 

"No! Let's play with it first. They'll take him away if they see we found a dead guy!"

 

"But...Kazé, I don't think he's dead...maybe he's hurt...."

 

Squirt could feel the poking now, sharp and irritating. The children's voices, seeming distant at first, were now growing harder and harder to ignore. Squirt frowned and sat up.

 

"Aaaahhh!"

 

All three of the children screamed. Squirt turned to look at them.

 

The silver-haired boy he noticed with a shock of recognition, but there was something...different about him, Squirt could not figure out what. The boy had leaped in front of the little blonde girl with his arms outstretched, a weapon appearing in his hand in a blaze of light, his face twisted in a snarl.

 

The third child, a boy with wild spikes of black hair whose eyes had been brown but were now blazing gold, hadn't wasted much time screaming. A key-shaped weapon quickly appeared in his hand, too; he leaped at Squirt and knocked him onto his back, one hand gripping Squirt's head, the other hand pressing the key hard against Squirt's throat.

 

Squirt stared up at the fierce little boy in surprise.

 

"Hey, dead guy," the boy hissed. "What do you want?"

 

An incoming wave surged up around them, swirling Squirt's hair into a new pattern, then retreated. "I want to keep enjoying the sea."

 

"...What kind of answer's that?" the boy scoffed.

 

"Kazé," the girl begged, "please come back, don't make him mad...."

 

The silver-haired boy bounded over and pointed his key weapon at Squirt as well. "You stay away from Naminé, you hear me?! Or I'll beat you up! And I'll get my brother and _his_ brothers and make THEM beat you up, too!"

 

Squirt wished that these children would go away and leave him alone. "I will stay away from your Naminé."

 

"DAWN! KAZÉ!"

 

At the sound of the furious voice ringing across the beach, both boys leaped away with guilty looks, their weapons disappearing. Kazé's eyes faded swiftly back to brown. "WE WEREN'T DOING ANYTHING!" he screeched back.

 

Three teenagers were hurrying across the sand toward them. One of them was much faster than the other two, a young man with blazing green eyes who looked like a seventeen-year-old version of the little silver-haired boy. "I _saw_ you," the young man snarled, seizing his small twin and giving him a shake. " _What_ have I told you about harassing people? _Total strangers_ who I'm sure were just _minding their own business_ \--"

 

"We weren't! We weren't! It's Kazé's fault!"

 

"WAS NOT! IT'S DAWN'S FAULT!!"

 

"BOTH of you shut up, I saw TWO Keyblades!" the teenager raged.

 

"Are we in trouble?! I'm not in trouble, I'm _not_!"

 

" _Apologize_!" The silver-haired young man pointed at Squirt, though his furious eyes were still fixed on the children. "Apologize _now_."

 

Kazé rolled his eyes. "Fine; _sorry_."

 

Dawn flung himself at Squirt and yelled at him, "I'M REALLY REALLY SORRY, TELL RIKU I WAS GOOD!!! You're fine, right?! You're _fine_!"

 

"I am fine," Squirt said, perplexed.

 

The teenager shoved Dawn out of the way and held his hand down to Squirt. "I am so, _so sorry_ , those two are total brats...." It was a minute before Squirt realized he was supposed to grasp the offered hand and allow himself to be helped to his feet.

 

By that time, the other two teenagers had caught up to them, and the silver-haired one was staring at Squirt's eyes, recognition dawning on his face. Squirt couldn't help reaching out toward that beautiful hair. This time, his fingers were allowed to make gentle contact.

 

"The boy with no name...."

 

"Riku," Squirt acknowledged. His gaze moved to the other two. "Sora, and Kairi."

 

"Wait...wait, I know you--" Kairi gasped. "You're the _dream dragon_?!"

 

"Whoa!" Sora yelled in delight. "He's real! He's really real! Wait, you're not a dragon?"

 

"I thought...you were dead," Riku said hesitantly. "Or that maybe I'd only...dreamed you, or something."

 

"I am alive. I have a name now." He paused as they all looked at him expectantly. Then he said with quiet pride, "My new master that I love gave this name to me. My name is Squirt."

 

Riku's expression twitched, but Kairi only laughed and said, "Awwww, I _love_ that name, it's so cute!" and Sora crowed, " _Yes_ , I finally know your name!" He stuck out his hand. "Hi, Squirt! I'm Sora."

 

Squirt shook the hand, as he had learned he was expected to do in some worlds. "Yes, I know."

 

"Your new master?" Riku questioned.

 

"Yes. He freed me from that man Drago Bludvist."

 

"I'm glad to hear that, but...you still have another master? You're not free?"

 

"I am free," Squirt said, feeling uncertain. He was no longer under Drago Bludvist's control, so that meant he was free, right?

 

"Um...Squirt," Riku said quietly. He held out his hand, and a weapon materialized in it, identical to little Dawn's in everything except size. "We're stronger now. _I'm_ stronger, and so are the three of us together. If you need our help...we can help you."

 

"That's what we do," Sora said brightly. "Are you in trouble or anything? We'll help!"

 

"Thank you, but I am well. My new master is a good man, and has been very kind to me." He wouldn't be when Squirt returned, but by this time, Hiccup's anger would be almost a relief, after so many months of uncertainty and anxiety.

 

Kairi very gently took hold of Squirt's arm and stroked her fingertips over the scars. "No more of these?"

 

"No more," Squirt confirmed.

 

Riku's eye was suddenly caught by the children, who had grown bored and were now playing some distance away. "KAZE! _Don't_ make him eat that; _gross_!" he yelled, marching after the fighting boys.

 

"Riku! Riku! Help, he's _bullying_ me!"

 

"I'm NOT bullying him, he's being a _wimp_!"

 

Riku scooped up both of them, hoisting one yelling boy over his right shoulder and tucking the other under his left arm. "Come on, Naminé," he sighed. "You guys are gonna have to play close to us now, okay?"

 

"Okay, Riku," she said readily, following close on his heels like a duckling as he trudged with his noisy, squirming burdens back toward their pile of towels and bags.

 

"You want to come eat lunch with us, Squirt?" Kairi offered.

 

"I burned some of the hot dogs, but it's okay! We have sandwiches, too," Sora said enthusiastically.

 

Squirt accepted the offer. He sat, rather bemused, on a beach towel, absently nibbling at a sandwich as he watched his new companions.

 

Dawn and Kazé seemed to shift frequently and almost seamlessly between playing together and fighting. One minute, they were battling so fiercely over the ketchup that Dawn's fingernails gouged bright pink lines in Kazé's skin (which disappeared when Kairi dabbed a bit of sweet-smelling liquid onto the scratches). The next minute, they were happily waging what they called a 'weenie war,' wielding their hot dogs like swords. Riku and Kairi firmly put a stop to that when the boys tried to hold their 'weapons' at crotch level for Round 2.

 

" _No_. Either eat your food or throw it away," Kairi said firmly.

 

"You two are so immature," Riku grumbled, and Sora quickly stopped laughing.

 

"We're little kids, we're _supposed_ to be immature," Kazé scoffed.

 

"You _used_ to be teenagers! Grow up. The quicker, the better."

 

Naminé seemed angelic in comparison, sitting quietly in Sora's lap as she ate her sandwich, often watching Squirt. Finally she climbed to her feet, went up to the Dream Master, and laid her hand on his shoulder in concern. "Are you okay?" she asked.

 

"It's so hot," Squirt mumbled. He was accustomed to freezing cold climates; even Berk was sometimes too warm for him. Blistering now in Destiny Islands' intense heat, he was sagging with his head resting on his drawn-up knees, his skin feeling painfully dry.

 

"Oh!" Kairi exclaimed, "I'm so sorry, Squirt! Here, I'm pretty sure we brought an umbrella, let me see...." She dug a beach umbrella out of their things and set it up, covering Squirt with desperately-needed shade.

 

He was sitting there, eyes closed, face upturned, when he felt a pleasantly cool touch on his arm. He looked down to find Naminé carefully rubbing sunscreen into his skin. "You have to protect yourself from the sun," she said, in a tone that suggested she was parroting what she'd been told. "Always wear sunscreen so you don't get burned, okay?"

 

"Thank you." Bemused and a little touched, Squirt watched her as she worked at her task.

 

When she moved around to apply sunscreen to the other arm, Riku reached out and took the bottle out of her grasp. "Squirt's a big boy. He can do the rest himself, okay?"

 

"Okay." Naminé crouched down and watched as Squirt continued the job. "Your face, too," she instructed. Understandably, he was clumsier in applying the sunscreen to a portion of himself that he couldn't see, and when he'd finished, Naminé stood back up and approached, gently rubbing out the little white smears that he'd missed. She rested her small palm against his face. Her hand was almost the same size as the biggest scar that marred his cheek. "Did a monster bite you?" she asked softly.

 

"No." Squirt considered. "Well...perhaps that is one way to say it."

 

"Naminé, let's not bother him, okay?" Riku said in gentle warning.

 

"Did it hurt?" Kazé asked eagerly, pushing up beside Naminé to look at the scar, too.

 

"Yes."

 

"Seriously, Kazé?" Riku said in annoyance.

 

"Does it still hurt?" Dawn asked, coming up on Naminé's other side and poking Squirt's cheek.

 

"No."

 

"Shoo," Kairi ordered, flapping her hands at the children. "Leave the poor man alone, okay?"

 

They retreated, but only a few inches. "You got beat a lot, huh," Kazé observed, lifting Squirt's arm in his hands and inspecting it critically.

 

"Yes."

 

"Me too. You can't see my scars 'cause all the Potions and stuff made 'em invisible, but I still got 'em all _here_." Kazé pressed his hands over his own heart.

 

"Are you free now?" Squirt asked softly.

 

Kazé wrapped his arms around the Dream Master's neck and leaned close to whisper into his ear. "Wanna know how we killed my old master?"

 

Squirt's eyes widened, and his body tensed in a sort of breathless anticipation. "How?" he whispered back.

 

"Me and my other half," Kazé said gleefully. "We worked _together_. We shared our heart again. Me and Ven together, we _killed_ him, so he can't hurt us anymore." The boy leaned back, his arms still resting comfortably around Squirt's neck, and grinned. Squirt grinned back, the gleam in his eyes mirrored in Kazé's.

 

"You have a lot in common with the kids, don't you," Riku observed quietly.

 

"We all used to be bad guys," Dawn informed Squirt. "Me and Naminé worked for the Organization, and Kazé used to be _pure darkness_ ," he said with relish.

 

"Look what I can still do," Kazé said mischievously. He crouched down and cupped his hands.

 

"Nononono, not a Mandrake!!" Sora cried. "Do a Flood! Those are cuter."

 

"And less destructive," Riku sighed.

 

"Or a Prize Pod," Kairi laughed. "Then we can have dessert."

 

"SSSHH, I'm trying to concentrate!" Kazé yelled. A few moments later, he had created a small blue creature that danced sharply about in an indecisive way, then suddenly dashed behind Kazé and clung to his back. " _Ow_." Kazé wrinkled his nose and elbowed it hard in what would have been its ribs if it was human. The creature disappeared. Kazé looked at Squirt and grinned again. "See? I can make monsters out of my feelings."

 

"Aww, you should make a happy Unversed sometime," Sora said.

 

"What? That's _boring_ ," Kazé scoffed.

 

"What do you do, Squirt?" Dawn asked.

 

"Pardon?"

 

"Your powers! What's your superpower?"

 

"I...I am a Dream Master."

 

"A what?"

 

"Pfft, that's kind of sissy-- Oooh, wait! Can you, like, give people nightmares??"

 

"Yes," Squirt said quietly. He glanced over in surprise when Naminé leaned into his side.

 

"That's why your master wanted you, right?" she said quietly. "You can make people so happy with your dreams, but your master made you do horrible things instead."

 

Squirt stared at her in astonishment. "How do you know that?"

 

Naminé closed her eyes and hid her face against his sleeve.

 

"The Organization made her mess with people's memories when she was at Castle Oblivion," Sora explained.

 

"That's Naminé's superpower," Dawn told Squirt. "It's really cool."

 

"What'd your master make you do?" Kazé asked eagerly. "Did you ever beat any good guys? Did you ever make any worlds get swallowed up in darkness?"

 

"I hope not, because those are _bad things_ ," Riku said pointedly, "which you _don't do anymore_ , Kazé."

 

"I _know_ ," Kazé huffed. "I'm just _asking_. I'm not _Vanitas_ anymore, duh...."

 

"We don't have to talk about this if it bothers you, Squirt," Kairi said. "You probably don't want to get bogged down by the past, right?"

 

"I don't mind...I hated that man so much, but...the bond between us is severed, I belong to someone else now...." Squirt smiled a little. "My new master doesn't even let me call him 'Master,' I must call him 'Chieftain' instead. He...acts like I am...a true member of his flock, as if I'm worthy of being a person on my own...."

 

"What?! Of course you're a person, Squirt!" Sora exclaimed.

 

"But I-- I'm not even-- I am an unnatural abomination. I am neither dragon nor human, I shouldn't even exist."

 

"Let me guess," Kairi said grimly, as Sora looked distressed and all three children stared at Squirt in varying degrees of horror, "the person who told you that was the same one who gave you all those scars."

 

"Yes, but it's true. Dream Masters cannot exist in the proper order of things, we only exist because we were born in the wrong realm. A monster like me can understand nothing but force--"

 

"LIAR!" Dawn screamed. He seized fistfuls of Squirt's clothes and shouted into the startled Dream Master's face, "They _lied_! They _lied_ to you! You're a person, you _are_ a person, you have a heart, I _have my own heart_ , I am NOT just a copy, I'm not _him_ , I'm not...!"

 

"You're you, not me," Riku murmured, gently disentangling the boy's grip and drawing him into his arms. "Your heart belongs to you. Your life is your own, Dawn." Riku continued to murmur comfortingly to the sobbing boy, having had much practice at soothing this particular wound.

 

"That's how you can make Dawn _really_ mad," Kazé stage-whispered to Squirt. "Tell him he's not real and he's just a fake."

 

"That's right, kiddo," Kairi said, dragging Kazé into her own lap, "but don't forget Dawn knows exactly which of _your_ buttons to press to get you all riled up, too."

 

"I don't have buttons," Kazé said loftily.

 

"VEN HATES YOU!" Dawn immediately screamed. "YOU'RE THE PART OF VEN HE HATED SO MUCH HE THREW YOU AWAY AND NEVER WANTS TO SEE YOU AGAIN!"

 

"I'M GONNA KILL YOU!" Kazé screamed back, writhing in Kairi's grip and suddenly waving a Keyblade.

 

"Hey, let's build sandcastles!!!" Sora cried, his mouth stretched in a frantic smile as he jumped to his feet. "Come on, Dawn, Kazé! Let's see who makes the biggest, prettiest sandcastle!"

 

"NO!"

 

"SANDCASTLES ARE FOR SISSIES!"

 

"Uhhhh...then do you guys wanna spar with me?" Sora summoned his Keyblade and waved it invitingly.

 

Both boys eagerly leaped at him. Laughing, Sora let them chase him down the beach for a while before he finally turned and started fending off their enthusiastic attacks.

 

Riku sighed and flopped back, propping himself up on his elbows. "Those two are such a freaking handful." He smiled over at Naminé. "Nothing like our princess here."

 

"You wanna show Squirt your drawings, Nami-chan?" Kairi asked.

 

Naminé smiled shyly. "Soon. When I finish my pictures for him."

 

Riku and Kairi chatted with Squirt for a while, asking conversationally why he had come back to the Islands. Squirt felt a strange inclination to be reticent, and said only that he had missed the sea, and had recently regained the ability to world-travel on his own initiative. He asked about the children, and learned of their strange circumstances, of the great war that had plagued these worlds, and the hard-won victory that had resulted in most of Sora, Riku, and Kairi's allies reverting to much younger bodies.

 

"Ienzo's the next-youngest after them, but he's still twice their age. The other two rugrats are Roxas and Xion, but they're in a different world. They're much closer to Axel - I mean, Lea - than they are to any of us, so they wanted to live with him in Radiant Garden."

 

"I miss them," Naminé said softly.

 

"Awww." Kairi patted her head. "I'll call Lea. Maybe we can see Rox and Xi tomorrow, okay?"

 

"Okay."

 

"What've you got there, Naminé?" Riku asked, touching the spine of her sketchbook.

 

She ducked her head shyly and pushed the book close to Squirt. "I drew the person you love most," she murmured.

 

Surprised, Squirt hesitantly nudged the book's cover open and began paging slowly through it.

 

Naminé's sketches were simple and childlike, but he still recognized some of the figures - Sora, Riku, Kairi, herself, the two boys. Then, on a page closer to the end....

 

Hiccup. Faceless but still unmistakably Hiccup, cradling an armful of hearts - some glowing, some broken - close to his own. "That's Him," Squirt whispered. He had never even told Naminé the man's name, had said little about him, yet this was _Hiccup_ , the one who always pushed past fear and anger and darkness until his love could reach the person buried within.

 

There were more. Toothless, Squirt's Night Fury alpha; Valka, who loved Squirt the way she loved all dragons; Eret, who understood the fear and pain of Squirt's captivity so well. And--

 

Squirt stared at the final sketch. It was a drawing of two figures, children, one of them dark and small, the older one fair, reaching protectively toward the younger. He recognized himself, but the other...the other...?!

 

"It was so long ago," Naminé murmured. "The memory was so hard to find, you almost lost it. I know you loved each other a long time ago, but...I think he is gone now."

 

Gone...gone...dead, blood spilling, Squirt's dragon tusks painted red with it, a last agonized cry, not for himself but for his defenseless flock, and a last heartbroken call to--

 

o.o.o

_"Brother...brother, why...?"_

o.o.o

 

"I don't want to think about this," Squirt said, and flung himself into a dream.

 

His dream was jumbled and fragmented at first - flying through the sky, chased by an army intent on rending him to pieces; the mother he didn't remember, crooning to him with Valka's voice, smoothing his wings and kissing his eyes shut; being chased by Hiccup, who would kill him when he caught him; Toothless stalking forward through every attack Squirt tried to throw at him, hands lifted to strangle him; drowning in a sea of blood, Drago's hate-filled eyes being the last thing he saw; fleeing, fleeing from the ghost of his brother, who reached out torn hands to exact vengeance....

 

Squirt was a flecked brown mouse, hiding petrified under a dresser. He watched Naminé moving around the room - she was not a child here, but a young woman, dressed in stainless white, sorting through battered, rusting chains with delicate hands.

 

 _"Here they are,"_ she said in a sweet, kind voice, gently cleaning dirt and grime away from silver chain links that shone brightly when she was finished. _"You almost lost them again. Please be careful with them, Squirt. You will treasure them when you're ready to hold them."_ She laid the small silver chain away in a drawer and shut it carefully.

 

Then she came and knelt down by the dresser, but she was no longer Naminé, she was a dragon, a small one with scaly black hide, small enough to slip beneath and curl protective wings around the terrified little mouse and murmur to him in Hiccup's loving voice, _"Come home, we're waiting for you...come home...."_

 

o.o.o.o.o

 

Squirt blinked, and finally realized he was staring up at the sunlit underside of a beach umbrella, with several worried faces hovering in between.

 

"Squirt?!"

 

"He's awake!"

 

"Hey, you okay?"

 

Riku held out a hand. Squirt took it, and allowed himself to be pulled upright.

 

"You just _collapsed_ , like you fainted or something!" Sora exclaimed.

 

Kairi looked pale and anxious. "We tried a Hi-Potion and even an Elixir, but nothing worked...."

 

"Squirt, look at me. Are you okay?"

 

"...I'm all right," Squirt muttered. He hadn't realized they would be worried about him.

 

"Squirt's okay," Naminé said in a small voice, clinging to his arm. "But please don't run away, okay? You scared me...."

 

"I'm sorry," Squirt murmured.

 

Sora frowned. "Run away? He was here the whole time."

 

Kairi gave Squirt a searching look. "Is that how you would escape? Whenever things got to be too much for you?"

 

["...."

 

"Escape," Riku said thoughtfully. "Wait a minute...you said you're a 'Dream Master'.... Can you go into other people's dreams? Back then, you said you found Sora just through a _day_ dream; can you...?"

 

"Dreams are other worlds...even daydreams are, to a lesser extent...as a Dream Master, I can pass through them at will."

 

"And you could, say, shove a scared little kid into the nearest daydreamer's dirty fantasy and then out into the real world again in a different place, huh," Riku said wryly. "So it _can_ work as a kind of teleportation, I'd always wondered about that...."]

 

Before Squirt could respond, Naminé suddenly gasped, Kairi let out a little shriek, Sora yelped, and Riku's expression twisted in annoyance when two pails full of water were dumped over Squirt's head, enthusiastically enough to splash the others as well.

 

"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?" Riku roared.

 

Kazé and Dawn shrieked in unison and fled down the beach. Riku caught them in seconds and started dragging them back, looking furious.

 

"We were HELPING!"

 

"Squirt fainted, we made him wake up again!"

 

"He was ALREADY awake before you went dumping water all over him!"

 

"He liked it!" Dawn shrieked, "He LIKED it, right, Squirt?! You like it?!"

 

Squirt was grinning. The seawater felt so refreshing, soaking into his skin; even just the smell of it invigorated him.

 

"You really liked it!" Sora laughed. Naminé had started shivering, and Kairi wrapped a towel around her.

 

"I love the ocean," Squirt told the little boys, who grinned back at him.

 

"See?!"

 

"SEE, Riku?!"

 

Riku sighed and let them go. "You two _really_ lucked out this time."

 

The boys jumped at Squirt, both giving him adoring looks as they grabbed his arms. "Come on, Squirt! Let's go swimming!"

 

"You wanna come swim with us, right? Right???"

 

"Yes. Yes, yes, very much, let's swim."

 

The three of them played together in the waves for over an hour, joined on and off by the others. When the boys finally tired themselves out, Squirt made his way back to the dry sand, carrying them both. He paused in confusion to see that the trio and Naminé had been joined by three other young adults.

 

Kazé wearily lifted his head to see what the holdup was. Then he whooped in joy, scrambled down to his feet, raced toward the newcomers, and flung himself into the woman's arms hard enough to send her rocking backward where she sat. "Mom! Mom! Mooooom!"

 

"Oh, Kazé!" she cried, looking both amused and taken aback. "Hello!"

 

"Hi, little me," said the younger teenager, leaning down to ruffle Kazé's hair.

 

"VEN!" Kazé unlatched from the woman and flung his arms around his other half, who laughed as he braced himself to keep his footing. "Stupid Ven! You're _late_!"

 

"Sorry, man. Master Eraqus kept us longer than I expected."

 

"We brought ice cream to make up for it," the oldest man offered, opening a small ice chest full of dessert bars.

 

Dawn perked up in Squirt's arms. "Hey, you brought extras for Squirt, right?! Squirt gets ice cream too or NO ONE gets ice cream, that's _fair_!"

 

"There are a few extras," the woman said, staring curiously at Squirt.

 

"This is a friend of ours," Riku said, introducing him. "Squirt, this is Aqua, Ven, and Terra. They take care of Kazé."

 

"Aqua lets me call her Mom," Kazé declared, now perched on Ven's back with his legs wrapped around the young man's waist and his arms draped around his neck. "And _this_ is Ven. He's mine, okay?"

 

"Yes," Squirt said. He thought wistfully of Hiccup, who had already been claimed by Toothless long before Squirt met him.

 

"And I'm Terra, the afterthought," the oldest man said. He teasingly elbowed the little boy in the ribs, making Kazé giggle. "We really do have some extras. What's your favorite flavor?"

 

Squirt's breath caught, but these people were not Hiccup. To his relief, they easily accepted his inability to make a decision on such a matter, and Squirt was very happy with the sea-salt flavored treat that was eventually given to him.

 

The sun started setting soon after they finished eating. They lingered long enough for a game with the beach ball, but eventually they could no longer deny that it was now well and truly dusk.

 

The beach towels were folded, the umbrella taken down, the food packed away, and good-byes were said. Aqua, Ven, and Terra headed off in one direction with Kazé; Sora accompanied Kairi and Naminé home in a slightly different direction.

 

Riku, with Dawn drowsing crankily in his arms, turned back toward Squirt. "Did you need a place to stay tonight or something?"

 

Squirt, who felt as if a heavy weight had slowly started to settle on him, took a moment to reply. "No. I must return home. My...my chieftain is waiting for me."

 

"Oh."

 

"...."

 

"...Seriously, is everything all right?"

 

"Yes." Squirt drew in a deep breath. "Yes. I was very glad to see you today, Riku."

 

"Same here. You'll come back and visit us again, right? The kids like you."

 

"Iwannaflyonthedragon," Dawn mumbled into Riku's shoulder, half-asleep. Riku patted his back.

 

"I will come back," Squirt said softly. _'Even if He binds me at last, I will still come find you in my dreams.'_

 

"Good." Riku's smile was barely visible in the deepening dark. "See you soon, then."

 

"Yes. I will see you soon."

 

Riku turned away. Squirt watched him go. Then, with a heavy heart, he opened a path to Berk.

 

o.o.o

 

Author's Notes: **CONCRIT TIME AGAIN! XD Please tell me, that little part in brackets that was my attempt to explain the bikini bit in the previous story/chapter - what do you think of it??? Does it fit within the story flow, is it out of place, is it sufficient to explain things in-universe without me having to resort to an author's note, is it necessary, not necessary, does it not really help...? What do you guys thiiiiiink? *anxious***

 

 **This one-shot takes place near the beginning of chapter 2 of _Freedom_.** I decided that _Freedom_ could still work if I separated the crossover scenes into one-shots, and that would solve some posting issues on FFN and AO3. (Now I can post the main _Freedom_ story properly with the rest of HSRMO. ...I think.) There's going to be one more Kingdom Hearts crossover (though probably not with the _Next Life_ headcanon), and another crossover with a different series.

If you're wondering about the slightly uneasy tone concerning Hiccup, it'll be explained in _Freedom_.

 

I believe it was bulbul523 I was conversing with about a potential relationship between the White King and Squirt. She's the one who came up with the idea, and I very much liked it and decided to incorporate it into my headcanon. She prefers the idea of the White King being Squirt's father; for me, Squirt being his brother works out better in most of my stories. Either way, that would be a pretty interesting connection for them to have.

It was a little heartbreaking when I realized how much Vani, Naminé, and Repliku have in common with Squirt....


	3. His Soul Reflects My Own: Freedom - Dragons in the Garden

**_His Soul Reflects My Own: Freedom - Dragons in the Garden_ ** **(rough draft)**

**A Kingdom Hearts / How to Train Your Dragon crossover fanfic by Raberba girl**

 

Summary: Toothless & Stormfly take Squirt to Radiant Garden for a meal and some medical attention, which little Roxas & Xion help them obtain.

 

A/N: It's the "Next Life" universe again, so Rox & Xi are small children, and Lea & Isa are teenagers.

 

The Berkians are all speaking dream language, but I'm not gonna bother italicizing it in this story, since the KH characters can still communicate with them (for reasons explained previously).

 

o.o.o

 

They emerged in a courtyard of a grand-looking town in a bright world. The soothing sound of fountains bubbled constantly in the background, and the people going about their business gave the trio a few strange looks, but did not seem alarmed.

 

"How do we get food here?" Toothless mused, looking around at the shops.

 

A child's voice rang out in delight. "Roxas, _look_!!!" The Berkians turned to find a little girl galloping toward them, with a little boy trotting leisurely after her.

 

The girl grabbed Stormfly's hand, clasped it reverently, and gazed up at her in adoration. "Are you a _fairy princess_??" she asked breathlessly. Her companion came to a halt beside her and studied Stormfly as well.

 

"No. I am a 'dragon.'"

 

The girl blinked. "You're a _dragon_ princess?"

 

"Cool," the boy remarked, looking a bit more interested.

 

"Not a princess. Just a dragon."

 

"Your wings are sooooo beautiful," the girl gushed. "Can I touch them?"

 

"No squeezing," Stormfly warned, "or pinching."

 

"I won't, I promise!"

 

The Nadder crouched down so that the little girl could run gentle hands over her wings. The little boy turned his attention to Toothless. "Why are you all black?" he asked curiously.

 

"Because I am black. Why are you all peach?"

 

"Um...because I'm peach?" The boy thought about this. "No. I dunno." He shrugged. Toothless picked him up in order to look at him better. The boy stared back, then reached out to touch one of the scales on Toothless's face. Toothless wrinkled his nose and set the boy down again. "You're cool," the boy decided.

 

"Yes. I'm a very much 'cool' dragon." He reached out to pat his palm against the boy's spiky hair. The boy tried to pick up the end of the dragon's tail to look at the mismatched fins. Toothless indignantly whipped it out of his hands. The boy went chasing after it. Toothless whirled around in a couple of circles, then finally hissed and leaped away from the insistently pursing child.

 

"I love you," the little girl was telling Stormfly as she hugged her. "I want to show you to Axel!"

 

"We have to find food for One Who Is Small," Stormfly said.

 

"Oh! _We_ went to find food, too! Axel told us to go buy ice cream. Are you gonna buy ice cream, too?"

 

"'Ice cream,' sweet cold! Yes, yes, we love this thing called 'ice cream'.... 'Buy' means give 'money' to the person, and they will give you what you want."

 

"Yup! Ice cream is 2 munny each. We're supposed to buy _four_ , one for me and one for Roxas and one for Axel and one for Isa. How many are you gonna buy?"

 

"I don't know."

 

"One, two, three," Xion counted. "There are three of you! That's...." She counted on her fingers. "Six. _Six munny_! You have six munny, right? Axel gave us _eight_ munny because we're supposed to buy four, but you only have to buy three."

 

Stormfly looked inside her wallet, which held only Berk currency.

 

"I don't think the ice cream lady will like that," Xion said doubtfully. "I think you need to give her some munny orbs instead."

 

"Okay."

 

"I'm Xion. What's your name?"

 

"I am One Who Flies In Storms."

 

Xion stared.

 

"My human name is Stormfly."

 

"Ooooooh. Princess Stormfly, it's _perfect_ ," Xion gushed.

 

"I'm not a princess," Stormfly said again, looking a little bewildered at the child's insistence.

 

By this time, Roxas had noticed Squirt. He craned his head up and up and up. "You're really tall," he remarked.

 

"Yes."

 

"Why are you all bloody? Did you get in a fight?"

 

"No."

 

Xion came over to join her brother. "Ooooh, you need a Potion, huh."

 

"Why?" Squirt asked.

 

"Because you're hurt! Don't worry, Potions taste _good_ , and they make you feel all better. They cost a _lot_ of munny, though...."

 

"We need this world's money," Stormfly explained as she rejoined her companions, "not Berk's money."

 

Toothless made a face. "Blech. Stupid worlds. We will go find an ocean and catch fish instead."

 

"Wait!" Xion clung to Toothless's arm. He stared at her. "You can get some munny here! You can fight, right? Getting munny is easy!"

 

"Come on, I'll show you," Roxas said. He took Squirt's hand and pulled hard until the Dream Master finally followed him to the closest spawn point. "Look, watch," Roxas said gleefully. He yelled and ran into the spawn point. "Yaaaaahhhh!"

 

Clumps of darkness formed beneath the surface of the pavement and zigzagged after him, then paused to wriggle aboveground and take shape as twitching black creatures with stunted human-like limbs and glowing eyes.

 

Squirt backed away in horror, eyes fixed on the creatures as if they were nightmares come to life.

 

"Come on, Xion!" Roxas shouted. There were flashes of light, and the two of them were suddenly holding shining key-shaped weapons. Yelling, the children beat the Heartless until they finally poofed out of existence, leaving behind small prizes.

 

Xion collected the munny orbs and trotted over to give them to Stormfly. "This is munny. If you get enough of them, you can buy ice cream and a Potion."

 

Roxas was pulling on Squirt's hand again. "Hey, come down _here_. I can't reach." Squirt obligingly crouched. "Okay, now stay still. Don't worry, it doesn't hurt." Roxas put the green ball onto one of the scratches on Squirt's arm, and squished it into the wound. The HP orb vanished into Squirt's flesh, healing some of the inflamed skin. Squirt stared at it. "See? You need more, though. We have to kill more Heartless."

 

" _No_." Squirt swept upright again and backed away. "Those monsters frighten me."

 

"It's okay, One Who Is Small." Toothless patted his shoulder comfortingly. "I am your alpha, I will protect you." He jumped back to the spawn point, but nothing happened.

 

"We killed them all," Roxas explained. "You have to leave the courtyard and then come back if you want to fight them again. But here, fight these ones first." He towed Toothless over to another spawn point. When more Heartless formed and came wriggling out of the ground, Toothless grinned and obliterated them with one shot each.

 

"Whoooooaaaa!" Roxas stared up at him, his eyes shining with admiration. "That is soooooo cool!"

 

"I'm the best," Toothless agreed.

 

A shout came ringing across the courtyard. "ROXAS! XION!"

 

The children spun around, looking both eager and sheepish. "It's Axel!"

 

"I think we made him mad...."

 

A teenage boy with wild red hair came bounding toward them, flinging himself to his knees so that he and the children could glomp each other. Another young man with dark hair and a calmer demeanor followed in his wake.

 

"What _happened_?! You were just supposed to buy some ice cream and come back!"

 

"We'll get the ice cream, Axel, but we were helping our new friends." Roxas pointed at the Berkians.

 

"Look, look, look!" Xion tugged the red-haired boy over to the Nadder. "This is Stormfly! She's a _dragon princess_ , only she doesn't know she's a princess yet. Stormfly, this is Axel," she introduced, patting her guardian's arm, "and that's Isa, he's not Saïx anymore."

 

"His name is Lea, not Axel," Isa corrected, eyeing the strangers disapprovingly.

 

"Everyone calls him Lea, but his name is really Axel," Roxas said.

 

"This is the prince!" Xion continued, taking Toothless's hand and swinging it. "He's gonna save Princess Stormfly from the magic spell and they'll live happily ever after."

 

"I'm not a prince, I'm an alpha," Toothless objected.

 

"What's an alpha?" Roxas asked.

 

"The best and most amazing king," Toothless said proudly.

 

Roxas studied him. "You don't look like a king."

 

"Doesn't matter! I beat _him_ ," Toothless pointed at Squirt, "to save my precious thing that I love, now all of them are one flock, mine!"

 

"Yes, well. If your majesty will pardon us," Isa said, only Lea picking up on his sarcasm, "we need to be going now." He moved to herd the children away.

 

"We're going to buy food, _sweet cold_ 'ice cream' to eat," Toothless said, brandishing his handful of munny at Xion, who smiled encouragingly, "and a Potion to make Small One stop hurting."

 

"That's right! Come on, Prince Alpha!" Xion said, taking the Night Fury's wrist and pulling him along.

 

Lea scratched his head. "I guess the whole making-friends-with-anyone-who-looks-at-us thing comes with the territory...."

 

Isa sighed.

 

Killing enough Heartless to earn the Berkians enough munny was an easy task, and Lea was quite delighted at the dragons' fire-shooting ability. Although the Potion had no effect on Squirt's old scars, it healed his fresher wounds without a trace, and he actually _smiled_ when he touched his tongue to the blue dessert Roxas handed him and tasted ice and the sea. "I have eaten this before...it is delicious...."

 

"It's good, right?" Roxas said.

 

"Sea-salt ice cream is our _favorite_ ," Xion gushed.

 

The Berkians bought more nutritious food as well, grossing out Isa, fascinating Lea, and delighting the kids when they consumed it in very untraditional combinations. "Eeewww, you put pudding on your fish?!"

 

"I wanna try, I wanna try!"

 

It was good to spend the afternoon in a lively world, with companions who were oblivious to their troubles and children who made everything seem so much less complicated and heavy. Squirt actually _forgot_ about Hiccup from time to time.

 

When the children finally left with their guardians, Squirt decided to spend the night in an inn on Radiant Garden, and the dragons felt safe leaving him unattended in order to return to their humans. It wasn't until hours and hours later that Squirt woke up from a nightmare and crept back to his dark, silent dreamscape, caught between the fading glow of warmth in his heart and the growing misery of what he still had to endure.

 

_'I should...go back...I should find those children again, I should let them comfort me....'_

 

Yet he didn't. No matter how wonderful other worlds could be, they were not what he wanted most, and he didn't _want_ to forget about Hiccup even if doing so eased the pain of their separation. He simply waited instead, subdued now, sinking slowly deeper and deeper into darkness, until he had convinced himself that he was where he needed to be.

 

o.o.o

 

Author's Notes: This one-shot takes place halfway through chapter 5 of _His Soul Reflects My Own: Freedom_. This one wasn't planned; I was drafting chapter 5 and realized that there was a part where an extra crossover story would be useful. So there's still at least one more KH crossover chapter left, and that one probably will not be in the NextLifeverse!

 

Just to clarify in case it wasn't obvious, Toothless is not African American; his skin is black because he's a Night Fury. Roxas had never seen anyone with skin that dark before, so he was curious.

I have a feeling that Toothless and Roxas would get along really well. XD

 

 **In Le'letha's fantastic story _Nightfall_ , Stormfly's dragon name is Flies-in-Storms.** I'm not sure whether I would have decided on the name "One Who Flies In Storms" or not if I hadn't read _Nightfall_ first, but I wanted to give credit just in case! And it's a wonderful fanfic anyway; go read it. :)

 

Xion thinks that Potions cost a lot of munny because she's a kid; they're actually cheap.


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